The men’s Badminton team won the first medal for India in the event since 1976 in the Asian Games as the side featuring the likes of Lakshya Sen, Kidambi Srikanth, Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy among others won a Silver in Hangzhou, China after losing to the home team in the final 2-3. Having not made even the final in the team event, it seemed like India will win a historic Gold when Sen and the doubles pair of Chirag-Satwik had won their matches. However, India went on to lose their remaining three games as China won the Gold medal.
This was India’s 11th medal in Badminton at Asiad and only the second silver after PV Sindhu’s final loss in 2018 in Jakarta. India were left facing China in the final without one of their senior members HS Prannoy being ruled out due to a back injury. Sen started well with a 22-20, 14-21, 21-18 win against Shi Yuqi before Chirag-Satwik dominated the pair of Liang and Wang to get India a 2-0 lead in the final.
Kidambi Srikanth began well as he was leading against Li Shifeng before the Chinese prevailed in the first set 24-22. Shifeng won the second set comprehensively 21-9 to help his side open their account in the final. After this it was a rather dull performance from the Indians as the pair of Dhruv Kapila and K Sai Pratheek and Mithun M in the singles lost their match in a rather one-sided way as India’s dream for first Gold in Badminton remained unfulfilled.
The women’s team was knocked out in the quarters while the men’s team lost in the final. However, there are hopes from the shuttlers in the individual events.
The shuttlers capped off what was a historic day for India with as many as 15 medals in the kitty as the tally stands at 53 now after eight days.
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